Chaos Magic

[Nonpareil]

Depends on the evidence and testimony. If 10 independent eyewitnesses saw the same individual rob and flee a store, but the physical evidence are tire tracks that don't match the suspect's car, I would guess the testimony would be believed- it's more likely the suspect changed tires at some later point.

But then they would need to find the tires. Otherwise it's all conjecture, and invalid as evidence.

Again, it depends on the eyewitness testimony. Of course you want to corroborate it with other kinds of evidence. Sometimes you can't.

In which case it is invalid as evidence.

Note that I never claimed anecdotal evidence can't be trumped by other evidence. Obviously, it can. You claimed that it wasn't evidence. Obviously, you're wrong.

No, actually. The only example you gave was a situation where you would need to find some more evidence to back up the eyewitness testimony before it could be accepted as valid evidence.

EDIT: If you want to be absolutely pedantic, my statement was wrong. Technically, to be correct, I should have said "anecdotes are invalid as evidence unless supported by other evidence", but I figured that, since we're all big boys and girls here, it wasn't necessary, since the point I was trying to make was fairly obvious.

 

[Zanders]

Don't people that supposedly have encounters with aliens mention the "ringing" or buzzing sounds when they communicate telepathically?

In my thread here a buzzing sound was mentioned in the supposed apparitions as well.

 

[Malerin]

But then they would need to find the tires. Otherwise it's all conjecture, and invalid as evidence.

What, the eyewitness testimony? Not at all. The eyewitness accounts would be admissible. The defense would make a big deal about the condflicting tire tracks. I doubt the jury would be convinced. Many people have been convicted just based on one eyewitness account and no other evidence.

This is all hypothetical though. Eyewitness testimony is anecdotal and has convicted many a person absent any other evidence.

EDIT: If you want to be absolutely pedantic, my statement was wrong. Technically, to be correct, I should have said "anecdotes are invalid as evidence unless supported by other evidence", but I figured that, since we're all big boys and girls here, it wasn't necessary, since the point I was trying to make was fairly obvious.

This is wrong. If your wife tells you she came home late because traffic was bad, do you not believe her unless her anecdotal account is "supported by other evidence"? We accept many many anecdotal accounts as evidence without being able to verify them or asking for additional proof.

ETA: Anyone who has talked to Dr. Kitten for any length of time probably believes he's a college professor. This is based solely on what Dr. Kitten has said about himself.

 

[tsig]

Anecdotes are evidence. It's amazing how many "skeptics" here don't realize that.

ETA: More to the point, the authors of the paper thought it was reliable enough to be included in the paper itself.

I was walking down the road one day when suddenly I was struck down as if by the force of a great wind but no wind was blowing then a great shining light as bright as a thousand suns blazed forth and the sound was as the sound of many trumpets and a great voice rang out and said "I do not exist".

Believe my Anecdote?

 

[Zanders]

What, the eyewitness testimony? Not at all. The eyewitness accounts would be admissible. The defense would make a big deal about the condflicting tire tracks. I doubt the jury would be convinced. Many people have been convicted just based on one eyewitness account and no other evidence.

This is all hypothetical though. Eyewitness testimony is anecdotal and has convicted many a person absent any other evidence.





This is wrong. If your wife tells you she came home late because traffic was bad, do you not believe her unless her anecdotal account is "supported by other evidence"? We accept many many anecdotal accounts as evidence without being able to verify them or asking for additional proof.

If you know somebody personally and have learned that you can trust somebody, then it is safe to believe people's anecdotes. That doesn't mean they are 100% true, though.

I don't see how that is comparable to the value of anecdotes when it comes to science.

 

[Nonpareil]

What, the eyewitness testimony? Not at all. The eyewitness accounts would be admissible. The defense would make a big deal about the condflicting tire tracks. I doubt the jury would be convinced.

And since when is a jury required to be perfectly rational?

This is all hypothetical though. Eyewitness testimony is anecdotal and has convicted many a person absent any other evidence.

Which doesn't make it any more valid. You are speaking in courtroom terms, where all that is required is to convince a small group of people. I am speaking in terms of science and logic, where much more is required.

This is wrong. If your wife tells you she came home late because traffic was bad, do you not believe her unless her anecdotal account is "supported by other evidence"?

Yes, because this is a mundane claim and I have no reason to believe anything else. If, on the other hand, I suspected my wife of being unfaithful, and I could see on the news that there were no traffic problems, I might be suspicious.

We accept many many anecdotal accounts as evidence without being able to verify them or asking for additional proof.

Because the standards of evidence for the situations are quite different. In everyday situations, anecdotes are fine. In others, they are not. This is one of the latter.

 

[tsig]

I've got a perfectly fine bridge to sell you. It's in great shape, the maintenance has not been neglected, has heavy traffic, and you'll be able to set any toll you want without interference.

Great cause I've got a couple of trolls to collect the tolls and they can live under the bridge.

 

[AkuManiMani]

But, whether or not a particular anecdote is given the official sanction of a formal scientific community/institution is irrelevant to it's veracity.

I never said otherwise.

It simply means it does not have the backing and credibility of a community of individuals you trust.

Not exactly. It certainly doesn't, but that isn't the reason that it can't be accepted as evidence.

The reason it can't be accepted as evidence is that it simply hasn't been verified. There's no evidence supporting it. It's just the nurse's word that it's true, and even if they aren't lying, they have no evidence that they are remembering it correctly. It's the same problem that the anecdotes you have presented here have: there's no way to tell if you're telling the truth, or whether or not your memory of the event is false, or whether or not there's a mundane explanation. We don't have the information or evidence necessary to render judgment either way.

Again, it all boils down to who's word you ultimately trust to vet information that you might otherwise be unable to investigate yourself. Unless you directly observe an event for yourself its not a matter if knowledge for you, but an issue of faith.

Thus, it is not evidence for the paranormal.

I've never argued for the "paranormal", and I think its a bit silly to speak of their being evidence for or against it. Lets say, for the sake of argument, that people's awareness actually are popping out of their bodies during OBEs, or that there actually are "spirits" acting independently of material brains. Would those phenomena still be "paranormal" if science advanced to the point where it discovered/understood the mechanisms involved?

Also, not everything is science is a laboratory enterprise [for example, the field studies of naturalists, or in the social sciences].

But their reporting must be systematic, repeatable, and verifiable. Otherwise they can't support them. These areas of science get no special treatment. It's simply harder to collect data in them.

Lets say that you personally go out an verify some data for yourself but others are not as lucky in their observations. Does that lack of independent verification render what you've experienced invalid, or somehow false? What if its something others find unbelievable or extraordinary?

There are so many anecdotal cases out there along the lines of the one's I've just given [such as cases of OBEs, and alleged contacts with "spirit" entities] with so many parallels that they cry out for serious inquiry.

And serious inquiry has been given on multiple occasions. All the studies have turned up nothing, been discredited, or proven unrepeatable.

I'd amend that to say that all inquiries you personally lend credence to have turned up nothing, been discredited, or proven unrepeatable.

Whether or not one wants to describe such accounts as "paranormal" or "mundane" there is clearly more going on than meets the eye. You may not find them interesting or worthy of consideration, but they personally itch my curiosity in the extreme.

I never said that they weren't interesting or worthy of consideration. In fact, I find them extremely interesting. I simply said that they are not valid as evidence of the paranormal, and using them as a basis for belief in the paranormal is irrational.

I think all belief/disbelief in "the paranormal" is irrational. Any processes/phenomena that may be off the dark-edge of human scientific knowledge are simply beyond our epistemic horizons. I prefer Dawkins' designation of "perinormal" as it doesn't carry with it the implicit assumption that a given phenomena is in someway beyond the reach of science, in principle.

 

[tsig]

That depends on the anecdote and the person telling it.

Then truth depends on the character of the person speaking?

 

[tsig]

Not all anecdotal evidence is of equal value.

Then maybe we should see if any fact backs up those anecdotes.

 

[Malerin]

If you know somebody personally and have learned that you can trust somebody, then it is safe to believe people's anecdotes. That doesn't mean they are 100% true, though.

I don't see how that is comparable to the value of anecdotes when it comes to science.

As Aku pointed out, esp. in the "soft" sciences, scientific study isn't possible without anecdotes.

I never claimed they were 100% true. However, they are evidence.

In the Lancet case I brought up, there are several alternatives to the nurse's account:
-She's lying
-She's deluded
-She's mistaken

I'm sure the researchers considered these possibilities. They obviously rejected them by including her account in their paper. That gives her a certain amount of veracity. Her claim should be treated with an open mind instead of being dismissed out of hand as "anecdotal". That is not very skeptical.

 

[Nonpareil]

Again, it all boils down to who's word you ultimately trust to vet information that you might otherwise be unable to investigate yourself. Unless you directly observe an event directly for yourself its not a matter if knowledge for you, but an issue of faith.

Ultimately, yes. Very small amounts of faith, but yes. Your point? I am willing to make the leap of faith to say that the scientific community at large is not lying through their collective teeth about the results of their studies. I am not willing to make the - rather larger - leap to say that this nurse is not only not lying but recalls the event with one hundred percent accuracy.

I've never argued for the "paranormal", and I think its a bit silly to speak of their being evidence for or against it. Lets say, for the sake of argument, that people's awareness actually are popping out of their bodies during OBEs, or that there actually are "spirits" acting independently of material brains. Would those phenomena still be "paranormal" if science advanced to the point where it discovered/understood the mechanisms involved?

No. This is where the definition gets rather fuzzy, but I think that, for the sake of discussion, we can agree that spirits and OBEs can be called "paranormal" in a casual sense, simply for lack of better word to describe them at the moment.

Lets say that you personally go out an verify some data for yourself but others are not as lucky in their observations. Does that lack of independent verification render what you've experienced invalid, or somehow false? What if its something others find unbelievable or extraordinary?

Yes, actually, it would. If I "verified" something myself, but no one else was able to replicate it, I would think that I had either gotten lucky and ended up on the far end of the bell curve or had somehow screwed up the experiment. I would seek to replicate it. If I could, I would enlist others' help in finding out why I could do it and no one else could. If not, then I would be satisfied that I had screwed up.

I'd amend that to say that all inquiries you personally lend credence to have turned up nothing, been discredited, or proven unrepeatable.

Fair enough. However, bear in mind that I lend credence to them because they are backed by a large number of repeated, verified studies, and unless you want to argue that these studies are all falsified, I really have no reason to retract that trust.

 

[Malerin]

Then truth depends on the character of the person speaking?

Truth doesn't depend on anything. Something either is true or not. Your evaluation of truth depends on a lot of things. If the person talking to you is a paranoid schizophrenic, you likely won't believe much of anything they say.

 

[tsig]

Depends on the evidence and testimony. If 10 independent eyewitnesses saw the same individual rob and flee a store, but the physical evidence are tire tracks that don't match the suspect's car, I would guess the testimony would be believed- it's more likely the suspect changed tires at some later point.



Again, it depends on the eyewitness testimony. Of course you want to corroborate it with other kinds of evidence. Sometimes you can't.

Note that I never claimed anecdotal evidence can't be trumped by other evidence. Obviously, it can. You claimed that it wasn't evidence. Obviously, you're wrong.

ETA: A simple case will suffice:

You're about to join a poker game. A trusted friend whispers to you, "I wouldn't, I saw the dealer cheating". Your belief that the poker game is fair will drop quite a bit based on the anecdotal evidence from your friend.

So to show that anecdotal evidence is sound you tell us.. anecdotes?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Don't people that supposedly have encounters with aliens mention the "ringing" or buzzing sounds when they communicate telepathically?

In my thread here a buzzing sound was mentioned in the supposed apparitions as well.

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a read when I get the chance

 

[PixyMisa]

What I am interested in is how one would be able to find good evidence for contact with whatever these entities are. If they don't have psychic powers, but exist, what would convince people that there are entities like this that you can talk to?

Well, how do we know that giraffes exist?

And Malerin, I just got done talking to Jesus Christ and he told me that you are mistaken. The man has to be right, he is God in the flesh, so there is no arguing with that.

Would Jesus lie?

 

[Nonpareil]

As Aku pointed out, esp. in the "soft" sciences, scientific study isn't possible without anecdotes.

And yet these anecdotes must be recorded and evaluated in a systematic way that yields verifiable, repeatable results and conclusions about the hypothesis.

I never claimed they were 100% true. However, they are evidence.

Correction: they are evidence if and only if

- the hypothesis deals directly with the anecdotes themselves or
- they are supported by other evidence.

In the Lancet case I brought up, there are several alternatives to the nurse's account:
-She's lying
-She's deluded
-She's mistaken

I'm sure the researchers considered these possibilities. They obviously rejected them by including her account in their paper.

You draw this conclusion how, exactly? The paper gives absolutely no indication as to the thoughts of the researchers on the nurse's anecdote. It is simply included. You are speculating without basis.

 

[Malerin]

Then maybe we should see if any fact backs up those anecdotes.

There's a huge NDE/OBE study going on trying to do just that. They're supposed to release their findings soon.

 

[Malerin]

And since when is a jury required to be perfectly rational?



Which doesn't make it any more valid. You are speaking in courtroom terms, where all that is required is to convince a small group of people. I am speaking in terms of science and logic, where much more is required.



Yes, because this is a mundane claim and I have no reason to believe anything else. If, on the other hand, I suspected my wife of being unfaithful, and I could see on the news that there were no traffic problems, I might be suspicious.



Because the standards of evidence for the situations are quite different. In everyday situations, anecdotes are fine. In others, they are not. This is one of the latter.

And the goalposts keep moving. So now anecdotal information without accompanying evidence is OK as long as it's mundane? How do you determine whether something is mundane or not?

 

[Zanders]

There's a huge NDE/OBE study going on trying to do just that. They're supposed to release their findings soon.

I find that very fascinating and await their results. If they actually get some results, this will really change things up quite a bit.